Microsoft revealed their blue screen of death to ‘partners’ who sell hosted Microsoft products such as Exchange and SharePoint.  Over the years we have considered entering the hosted Microsoft market occupied by local companies like HostNet and Aztec, but I could never get the numbers to work.  More often than not most clients wanted to ‘own’ their own systems.  Of course more and more companies have asked us to colocate their systems in our data center (something we offer to every client at no additional fee), but they still want to control their destiny by ‘owning’ their assets.

Beginning today (July 8th), Microsot is not selling Microsoft-hosted (i.e. hosted by the software giant themselves) versions of Exchange and SharePoint for $3/user/month.  OMG!!!  I know exactly what hosted providers pay Microsoft for the same service that they resell for prices ranging from $9-50/user/month and it is MORE than the new retail rate.  Of course, even if Microsoft lowers their price to $1 for resellers it won’t matter – the resellers won’t be able to recover their costs.  This is the beginning of the end for hosted Microsoft providers.  It is simply game over, blue screen of death.  Ouch…  With partners like Microsoft who needs competitors?